The Halifax-based radio station that has supported people for two decades was under threat of closure, but community aid means a new start is on the horizon

Halifax has a rich history in radio: Wilfred Pickles, who hailed from the town, was the first BBC radio newsreader to speak in a regional accent. This shift away from received pronunciation is said to have been a way of stopping the Nazis from impersonating BBC broadcasters.

For over 20 years, Phoenix FM has been on the air and spent the last seven of those years at its base in the Fletchers Mill office suite, which is part of the Dean Clough business park in the heart of Halifax.

Running a community radio station comes with its share of challenges, but few have been tougher for manager, Howard Priestley, than the suite’s landlord deciding to evict the station for no apparent reason. Phoenix had 30 days to find a new home.

As well as being a place for listeners in the Calderdale area to hear local news from local voices, many of Priestley’s presenters have mental or physical disabilities, behavioural issues, or have struggled with addictions such as alcoholism. Phoenix supports these people to learn real-world skills, with presenters going on to get industry-related degrees and even professional careers in radio.

For Priestley, the value of a station like Phoenix FM can never be understated. He says: “we’ve supported lots of young people who wouldn’t normally be respected or heard.”

Phoenix came out of a short-lived hospital radio station called Spark FM. Priestley was going to take Spark on himself, but a director previously involved with the station forced the name change. Out of this came Phoenix, with the mission of helping people in mind.

Phoenix predominantly supports young adults who are out of work, education or training but they have also been known to support people who have Parkinson’s or have been at war.

“We had a veteran with PTSD and the Ministry of Defence wanted him here as a means of therapy, so what would they think if he was just thrown out?” Priestley says.

The move could have led to the presenters with disabilities becoming disassociated from the rest of society, and it was the impact on these people that was Priestley’s chief concern.

Though the move has been distressing, Priestley felt that the eviction was coming. Apparently, differences had been growing between Phoenix and their landlord for a while, and this led tensions to rise.

Priestley says: “when it came, it was still a shock. If someone is ill and there is a chance they could die, when they do it’s still hard.

“We felt we didn’t fit in which is disappointing because the people who we pay rent to is an arts charity and part of their remit is to celebrate diversity.”

The eviction has also felt like a punishment in some ways, with its abrupt nature and lack of sympathy. Phoenix insists that they always played by the rules throughout their time in Fletchers Mill, but the disrespect that they have been shown reflects a different point of view.

The effects of the displacement on Priestley have been stark; it was recently detected that he was suffering from high blood pressure. This put things into perspective and made him start to question why he continued the role. Priestley is of retirement age, and perhaps a slower pace of life would be helpful.

But when the support and frustration at the situation was voiced by locals, he was reminded of the importance of Phoenix to everyone involved. This support has come to the tune of £1,800, the figure raised through donations on their ‘GoFundMe’ page. They hit their initial target of £1,500 within a week.

The level of impact that Phoenix has on the area is thought to be a key reason why it has received the backing that it has.

Priestley says: “the work we do covers black history month and LGBTQ Month, and we work within the community to share local stories and interests.”

The opportunities that are being presented to Phoenix with their new home have given them hope that their future will be bright. They will be above an art college that they have collaborated with before, in a space much bigger and with more possibilities for teaching and multimedia broadcasting.

The station has been involved with teaching school children radio techniques and the media promotion of the Halifax Panthers, the local rugby league team. Going forward, there are plans to do work supporting refugees in the town. The rise in popularity of podcasts is also something that Phoenix wants to tap into, and the bigger space will allow for this.

Over lockdown, two of Phoenix’s full-time presenters began a podcast which filled the airways when other presenters were self-isolating, and there are plans to revamp the project when the move is complete.

Priestley finished by voicing his criticism at the disregard shown toward the volunteers at Phoenix, believing that they are much more than any disabilities that they may have.

“If they (the landlord) only see the disability, they’ll never see the possibility. I’m proud of the people who’ve developed their skills through us because they love the shows,” Priestley concludes.

One of these people is Connor Lewins. He is 25, has autism and struggled at school, eventually leaving when he was 15. He began volunteering at Phoenix soon after and is now a regular presenter and teaches people how to use the equipment.

Lewins cites Priestley as a key supporter in his time dealing with mental illness, and Phoenix, generally, as the driving force in him realising his passion for music production, which he has a degree in from York St John University.

11 years on, Lewins is just as enthusiastic about the station and, despite the problems it has faced, he is still committed to the cause.

He says: “To me, Phoenix is home, a life and a great relationship with friends. Recently, I celebrated my 11th year at Phoenix. I began as a volunteer and now I am a support worker and a radio presenter.

“If I didn’t have this place, I wouldn’t really be anywhere.”

Lewins was at Phoenix when they were forced out of their first studio seven years ago. There were concerns that the current move would be a lengthy process and cut into valuable airtime.

The opposite has happened though, and with the help of the donations, Phoenix were able to begin the moving process quickly, much to the delight of Lewins and his colleagues.

His pride in Phoenix is closely related to his pride in being a Halifax lad, and he strives to progress Phoenix, in part, to give locals the best radio experience possible.

“We’re in a better building which gives us more opportunities to work in different areas of radio.

“It’s great to have a professional standard studio for live recordings and pre-recorded shows, to give the people of Calderdale the station they deserve,” Lewins explains.

The expansion of Phoenix and its ability to offer different opportunities with the new studio will meet what Lewins has wanted to do since attaining his degree. He has been teaching radio skills for a while and has developed a 12-week intensive programme which fast-tracks students to a high standard of radio knowledge.

This course has been taught to over 170 people, including people from Northern Ireland and the USA. Lewins says that learning skills in software mastering and editing have become hobbies, and his degree in the field makes him an expert to learn from.

It has been a combination of Lewins finding Phoenix, being supported by Priestley in his teen years and becoming qualified in music production, which has given his life a purpose.

“It’s helped me set goals for myself and live a life that I want,” Lewins says.

Priestley and Phoenix have been helping people for years in and out of the world of radio. And while one of their main aims is to support those with disabilities, sometimes it is people who are just a bit lost in life that benefit from the station.

Wayne Martyn dropped out of university and came to Phoenix off the recommendation of his mum, who wanted more for him.

His passions lie within music, but a ‘rambunctious’ youth very nearly set Martyn down the path of jail time. He has volunteered at Phoenix for the last 17 years and now does the drive-time show.

Martyn also teaches from the studio, but his expertise is more to do with lyrics, poetry, and also production.

He says: “I’ve been involved with writing and spoken word for about 10 years on and off, so I’d like to teach that. I can do a bit of hip hop and rap, and making beats.

“Kids will come in here and wipe the floor with me in terms of rapping, but I’m good with the production side.”

Like many people at Phoenix, Martyn has been helped by Priestley throughout many stages of his life, such as his struggles with various mental disorders.

Priestley’s mentorship has allowed Martyn to leave his dysfunctional life behind and put his effort and time into improving Phoenix. Martyn is also in paid work thanks to the guidance he has received from Phoenix.

“A great version of therapy is being creative and freeing people from stigmas. I’ve achieved a lot despite the issues I’ve got,” comments Martyn.

While the past months have been chaotic, the tests that Phoenix have overcome are a testament to the work they do, the people who devote their time to the station, and the people who need it to feel connected to their community.

A common sentiment expressed by those closest to Phoenix was that few regional stations have endured and survived what they have, due to the defunding of local community services.

But with the Radio Joint Audience Research company – or RAJAR – finding that 50 million people in February 2025 were still listening to the radio, there is plenty of space for Phoenix FM to grow and thrive.

RAJAR also found that over 700 million hours of radio were being listened to through DAB, smart speakers and online, and as Phoenix uses all of these platforms to broadcast, a new space could be what they need to get a bigger chunk of these hours.

So with Priestley, Lewins and Martyn on the microphones, a fresh studio and the backing of its devoted listeners, it appears that Phoenix FM, the proud station from Halifax, will keep on flapping its wings.

This is the photo that first went into Photoshop. It is from a gig I recently went to, the quality isn’t awful but some of the bandmates are a bit blurry and the saturation of the blue might be off putting to some. Generally, I think the quality of this photo could be improved.

This is the edited version. The bandmates stand out more I think, the picture is easier on the eye and there is a softness of the image that I think helps it. This was achieved by heightening the hue and the saturation of the image, with little adjustment to the lighting. Then I moved onto colour balance and increased the levels of the reds and greens in the image to counteract the overwhelming blue.

This is a photo of a collapsed building on Kirkgate. I think the atmosphere of the photo does well to convey a gothic aura which could be beneficial in putting across a haunted, abandoned feel. I think playing around with darker lightings and accentuating different colours could help to perhaps repurpose the image and generally get to a higher standard.

I found that over editing this image was highly likely and any great change would have taken away from the original image. The only change I really made was massively heightening the vibrance which I think helps to make the building stand out and I think the sky looks better too. While I would like to make it slightly more gothic (which I think I would need more experience with Photoshop to achieve) I have still improved the image overall which was a goal of mine.

The image here is of a statue in a quiet square so any kind of improvement that will drastically change the image will be hard to achieve but, again, just playing around in Photoshop and seeing what can be changed may uncover something in the photo which makes it much better.

Just be heightening the saturation, I think the picture has a richness that it didn’t before. Also, by cropping it to a ratio of 16:9 (which I have used for each of the images) I think the statue is now centre stage, which I think would be ideal for advertisement purposes.

The first image is taken with the lowest F stop possible, creating a balanced image with nothing standing out. Though the barrel man is bold in the foreground, the background is just as clear, making the image feel whole and together.

This image is taken using a medium F-stop. The only clear difference is seen with the sky scraper at the back of the photo, which is significantly blurred compared to the rest of the photo. This possibly helps the rest of the image stand out, but still doesn’t bring all the attention to the barrel man.

This is with the highest f-stop, and the barrel man is much clearer and almost pops out of the image. The background is still clear but the center of image is obviously the statue.

In the images above, you can see the process of the model jumping. The first picture isn’t blurry but the following ones are as it captures the action. There is a picture where the model hits the peak of his jump and the picture becomes clearer. This would be the picture to use from a sporting event when time almost stops and you can see a fast-paced shot freeze. The photos afterward return to being blurry, and the reader is brought back to looking at an action scene.

The use of shutter speeds and ISO are great ways of capturing action shots and separating the mundane, uninteresting photos from the key shots. A famous example is the photo of Usain Bolt at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where he was captured smiling at an onlooking camera as he crosses the finish line. His trailing competitors are blurry, as is Bolt’s lower body, but his grin beams through the photo. This method also helps to convey the speed of Bolt and the other runners, and juxtaposes the speed with the timeless image of Bolt’s jubilation of another Olympic success.

17/3/25 – Plans have been made to take images and conduct interviews. My story is about a radio station in Halifax being forced out of its premises. The station is known for helping local youths with learning difficulties and behavioural issues, introducing them to new skills and environments and allowing them to find their passion in media. When I was researching this story and speaking to prospective interviewees, the owner said that without Phoenix, many volunteers would be in a day centre. One volunteer with autism, who has achieved a degree in music from York St Johns on the back of his time at the station, said that he’d probably be stacking shelves if he couldn’t help at the station.

I have 3 interviewees in mind: Howard, who runs the station, George, who is a professionally trained studio tech, occasional presenter and who worked tirelessly in the process of dismantling the studio to get it ready for its new home, and Connor Lewins, one of the volunteers who has been massively helped by the studio and has found his passion for radio as a result of his time at the studio.

I do my work experience at the studio so going back and taking images won’t be a problem and I can get more interviewees is needs be, although for 2000 words, I think 3 separate points of view could suffice.

1/4/25 – I have conducted the three interviews that I wanted. I couldn’t get George because some things have happened at the station which have made him unavailable to talk, but another presenter has stepped in and helped me. The article is basically done so now I’m just editing pictures and adding the finishing details.

I’m not completely happy with all my pictures, there’s only so much editing you can do to save a picture so I plan to go back to get more pictures and retake some of the ones that are poorly angled or would be better being separate images rather than mushed into one.

22/4/25

Upon completion of the project, I am very happy with the outcomes. I was able to retake and improve the images that I needed to, conduct all the necessary interviews and achieve a high finish on all the pictures in the final article.

Above are some of my favourite images from the project